“Not necessarily. I was thinking more about Edward, actually.”
“Edward?” Now I was very confused. “He’s left, I think. Ellie said his car had gone.”
“He’ll be back,” Isabelle said, with more confidence than I had. “So, when are you going to tell him the truth?” And before I could interrupt, tell her that he already knew about me and Greg, she went on. “When are you going to tell him you’re in love with him?”
Edward didn’t come home at all that night. I skipped dinner and holed up in the Yellow Room, sitting out on the balcony, watching the driveway in case he returned. As I sat, I relived the day over and over in my mind, telling the story a dozen different ways, before settling on the truth. The bare facts of what had happened were more than enough to tell me what I needed to do next. Especially my grandmother’s parting words.
When are you going to tell him you’re in love with him?
Was I? I considered, stretching my story to encompass everything from our first meeting, up until the moment he’d walked out that afternoon. But even that wasn’t enough to give me my answer, so I pushed it further, out into the future, trying to imagine Rosewood without Edward. My life, without him in it.
No. That was unacceptable.
Love isn’t roses. Of all people, it was Greg’s words that came back to me now. It’s sticking around to fix things, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do.
Like he’d done. Like my father had done, sticking with my mum even though it meant giving up everything he’d worked for. Like Isabelle, hiding the truth from Therese and Nathaniel to protect their happiness.
Except Edward had left Rosewood. I frowned. That didn’t fit. He’d stayed through everything else. Through my grandfather’s quirks and rages, through the Golden Wedding, through Nathaniel’s death, through Isabelle’s crazies, through my stories and lies… He’d been there for me, every moment, ever since I arrived home. Even though I was the last person he wanted to fall for. After all, I’d already done everything he was afraid of to my own sister. He had to know I was capable of betraying him the same way his ex had.
I wouldn’t, though. I knew that with a bone-deep certainty that no story could shake. I wasn’t that Saskia any more. I was a different me.
And the moment Edward came home to Rosewood, I was going to prove that to him.
When darkness fell, I nipped to the study and grabbed a blank notebook and the orange jumper from Nathanial’s chair to keep me warm, and returned to my seat on the balcony. Then, wrapped up in wool and the fading scent of pipe smoke, I started to plan. If I wanted to start over and figure out what I really wanted out of my life, there were some discussions I needed to have first – with myself, and with others.
Turning to a clean page, I began to scribble down the most pertinent points.
One. Decisions to make: What do I want to achieve in the next year?
Put like that, it was almost easy. I wanted to write Nathaniel’s memoirs, just like he’d asked. I wanted to make up with Edward. And, most of all, I wanted to make things right between me and Ellie.
But Edward’s words were sticking with me, no matter how much I wished I could ignore them. Was I just playing make-believe? Pretending that things could ever be okay between me and my sister again? Pretending that I was capable of writing the memoirs the way Nathaniel would have wanted?
He was right about me hiding the truth from him – and myself. Who was to say that he wasn’t right about everything else?
I slumped down in my chair, and something on the dressing table caught my eye. Maybe I already had the answer to my questions – the letter from Ellie, addressed to me, that I’d been too cowardly to read until now. I stood, crossed the room, and picked it up, holding the stiff paper between my hands as if I could weigh the contents.
If I really was going to face the future honestly, to try and live in the real world, rather than my own, comfortable, fantasy version, surely this was the place to start?
Closing my eyes, I slit the envelope open with my fingers, and prepared to change my life.
Chapter Thirteen
Every new story, every blank page, is a chance to create a whole new self. A new persona to try on, try out, and discard at the end of the story.
A writer lives more lives than any normal person can dream of, lives them with more life – and with more love.
From the notebooks of Nathaniel Drury
Ellie was in the kitchen, alone, when I found her the next morning. The others must have all already breakfasted, but after an emotional night reading, thinking and desperately trying to plan, I’d slept in. And when I woke up, I realised what I should have known from the start: I needed help.
It was time to break the truce. Time to deal with everything we’d been ignoring and see what happened next. Because something needed to change if we wanted to move on.
And I really, really did.
“Did you hear?” Ellie asked, not looking up from the cookery book in her hands. “Isabelle has decided to throw a proper wake for Nathaniel, here at Rosewood, tonight.”
“With guests?” More people. Just what I didn’t need right now.
But Ellie shook her head. “Just the family. She says that with it being the first of September tomorrow, it’s like we’re starting a whole new year. Whatever you said to her about the memoirs, it seems to have worked. She positively bounced down to breakfast this morning, like a huge weight had been lifted. Same with Mum, since she read that clipping.”
That was something, at least. Something good that I’d managed while I was home. Isabelle would grieve for Nathaniel for the rest of her life; I knew that. But at least she had let some of the guilt go.
I wondered if I’d ever be able to do the same.
Pulling out a chair, I sat down. “Actually, I was hoping we could talk.” Not allowing myself to think through too fully what I was doing, I pushed the envelope and letter towards her, my heart beating too fast, too hard inside me. Ellie stared at the letter, leaving it sat in the middle of the kitchen table.
“Nathaniel said he destroyed that,” Ellie said, her voice very soft. “I only gave it to him because…I knew if I posted it, that would be the end of us, and I couldn’t go back on that. Nathaniel read it, then he took it to give me time to think. To decide.”
I’d wondered why he’d had it. Whether he’d read it, before it was sealed, or if Ellie had just asked him to keep it safe. I’d hoped he’d remained ignorant to my betrayal. A sharp pain speared through my chest at the realisation that Nathaniel had known everything. Known exactly what I’d done, who I was. And he’d called me home, anyway. Left me to tell his final story.
Loved me, anyway.
And Ellie had never posted the letter. That had to be a reason to hope.
“I think he was keeping it for me to read.” I reached out to take the letter back, but Ellie’s hand shot out and stopped me, pulling the envelope closer to her. “I think he wanted me to face the truth about what I’d done.” To read the bitter, hurt words my sister wrote and never sent. To understand exactly how much pain I’d caused. Because part of loving me was making me face up to my failures.
Ellie’s sharp blue eyes flashed up to catch mine. “And you think you’ve done that now?”
I shook my head, slowly. “No. Not entirely. I think there’s a lot more thinking and many more changes to make in my life before I can do that.”
“He was everything I had, Saskia. He still is.” The words should have sounded accusing, but somehow they came out more hurt.
“He’s not, you know,” I said, almost absently. “But that’s not the point. You have all sorts of wonderful things, not least our family, this house, a job you love. But I know that it’s Greg that means the most to you. And I never, ever meant to take that away from you.”
“You couldn’t.” The words were sharper this time. “He loves me.”
“I know he does. You’re the whole world to him. And I know now that he
never really loved me, no matter what I thought at the time. It was a mistake. A hugely regrettable, ruining lives sort of mistake. The sort I never ever wanted to make again once I left here.”
“I should think not.” Ellie’s hands had crumpled around the letter, and her face was pale. It was possible, I realised, that this was just as hard for her as it was for me. Although not the next bit. The idea of saying the words filled me with dread, but I felt like my insides were turning black and dead just keeping the knowledge inside. I had to come clean, let out all my truths, and find my real self again, under all the lies.